The
ongoing decline of Christianity in Australia is confirmed by the latest census data. Those reporting ’no religion’ are now at
30%, up 8% in the last 5 years.

It’s
no cause for celebration, says News Ltd columnist Jennifer Oriel. Perhaps it isn’t –
and perhaps it is. In putting her case, however, Oriel makes some stunning
claims. Let’s examine a few.

(1)Christianity is the generative principle of the free
world. Without it, liberal democracy will become hollow and the light of
liberty will be put out.

While within most churches democracy (along with ’the
light of liberty’ in the form of freedom of belief) is anathema, their concern
for it in the wider society seems largely to do with how they can influence it.
Even Oriel’s own media organ has acknowledged this, as has the
learned Marion Maddox.

(2)In the education sector, the media and even the military,
there is advocacy against Christianity. The anti-Christian position is invariably
couched in the language of diversity, inclusion and minority rights.

Perhaps it’s not so hard to understand a jaundiced view
of Christianity among LGBTI folk, given the kind of persecution Christians have
inflicted on them for so long. Some Christians, of course, are now
acknowledging this and even apologising, notably the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope, but from some Christian
groups the persecution continues... and continues…

(3)…big business has entered the fray by denouncing
conservative governments that uphold democratic processes such as the proposed
plebiscite on same-sex marriage. We used to have a name for a corporate
politics that subverts democracy by throwing cash at politicians: fascism.

What, no irony here (given that our writer is in the
employ of one Rupert Murdoch)?

(4)In his book What’s So Great About Christianity, Dinesh D’Souza
explains what I regard as the basis of Western civilisation: “The preciousness
and equal worth of every human life is a Christian idea.”

(5)The secular state is justified by Jesus’s instruction:
“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: and to God, the
things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Christianity thus provides the
ultimate defence against totalitarianism: the limited state.

In most cases, Australian churches are exempt from income tax, get concessions
for fringe benefit tax and GST and don’t pay rates. So much for ’render unto
Caesar’.

(6)[O]ur understandable anger about ordained pedophiles and
those who shield them should not blind us to the extraordinary promise of
Judaeo-Christianity. It has given us inherent human worth, dignity, equality,
freedom, secular statehood and liberal democracy.

And Oriel’s one-eyed enthusiasm should not blind us from
seeing other aspects of the Judaeo-Christian legacy which have blighted our
society and in many cases continue to do so: authoritarianism, unwarranted
privilege and advantage (in schooling, for example), oppression of minorities,
sectarian conflict, abuse of children and laws against gay marriage, abortion
and voluntary euthanasia.